Humble Beginnings

Well, it all started when I was about 4 years old. I was fascinated with stop-motion animation as seen in old Gumby and Davey and Goliath shows. I didn’t fully understand how it worked, but I understood that it was a series of still images. I asked my mom to borrow a 35mm still camera. My father worked for Fujifilm, so he developed the pictures for me.

A 2-frame story about a character who started out with no friends and then instantly had many.

So my first “animation” wasn’t much of a success. But I kept practicing and eventually got a hold of a second hand VHS-C camcorder. I remember making my own Gumby episodes and increasingly improved the production.

When I was in the 6th grade, I decided to make a full short film. It was a story about a Native American Shaman who goes on a journey to the future to save his people.

Used our TV as a monitor and a step ladder as a tripod. Moving on up in the world!

After high school, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker. My friends and I got together and we started doing all sorts of filmmaking-related things. Short films, music videos, actor demo reels, we even started a series on YouTube. But eventually, we had to get a little more serious and turn our work into a business if we wanted to continue doing it. So I scoured the Internet for clients and eventually found a business who needed a video.

Animating with tweezers.

It was our first client and we had no idea how much to charge. I think we ended up making less than $500. But it was nice to actually earn some money for our work and it enabled us to start a portfolio. We now had something we could show new potential clients. I can safely say this video helped launch our careers and grow into the studio we are today.